Board member spends weekends on the rails
John Morck can't resist a train.
"It's partly the romance. I also like big mechanical things that move," says Morck, a land use planner for the state Department of Commerce and a North Carolina Rail-Trails board member.
The first Sunday of each month, May through December, Morck, 45, is an engineer at the throttle of a 1942, 65-ton GE center cab or a 1953, 80-ton GE center cab diesel locomotive owned by the New Hope Valley Railway. The locomotive pulls five cars, three of which are filled with families and train enthusiasts, on the 45-minute, eight-mile roundtrip outside of Bonsal, a crossroads town 20 miles southeast of Raleigh on old U.S. 1.
The railroad or "museum railroad" is the last operating remnant of the rail line that ran north through Chatham and Wake counties to plug into Buck Duke's American Tobacco Co. in Durham. Today 6.5 miles are paved and most of the 22 miles of the American Tobacco Trail are usable by bicyclists, walkers and equestrians. (See "American Tobacco" on page 3 for an update.)
As a NCRT member, Morck works to preserve and return to public use the 2,800 miles of railway abandoned in North Carolina. He knows the sound and culture of railroads and the importance of corridor preservation.
The Chicago & Northwestern commuter and freight line run by his childhood home of Arlington Heights, Ill., to Chicago. His relatives worked for The Rock Island railroad. As a teenager he volunteered at the Illinois Railway Museum in Union, Ill.
"When I moved here, it was natural to find another place to volunteer," says Morck, who has been a volunteer with the New Hope Valley Railway for 13 years, six of those years as an engineer.
The University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee graduate in city planning worked in Guilford County and Monroe before settling in Raleigh six year ago for his second stint with the state Department of Commerce.
To sit on the engineer's bench, hit the throttle and hear the forged iron couplings clank means starting at the bottom of the railroad hierarchy. Morck began as a car host and moved up to brakeman and assistant engineer while remaining a regular on the track crew.
"The toughest thing is to try to operate smoothly so passengers don't feel any changes with brakes or the throttle ... so you're not jerking people around," he says of being an engineer.
The train travels 15 mph. Rain or oil on the tracks make braking difficult. Deer are a potential hazard, but Morck has never hit one. On a typical Sunday last year, Morck was scheduled to work as an engineer for one of the five trips the three engineers divide.
That's not a lot of engineering glory for the effort and hours. The 100-member organization is a team effort with 25-30 hardcore members spending parts of each weekend clearing trash from the rail line, shoring up ballast or replacing crossties, 600 of which were replaced last winter. Morck works on the railroad one weekend day two weekends a month.
"She likes it when I get out of the house," Morck jokes of his wife, Debbie, who runs the museum's gift shop.
Increased marketing and a feature on WUNC television resulted in over 10,000 riders last year. "The ridership has really soared in the last three years," Morck says. One Sunday in June, 1,200 people rode the train. The increased interest led to the addition of a third passenger car for the holiday season the first two weekends in December, which pushed the train's capacity to 250 passengers. Result? During the four days of the two holiday weekends, 3,700 people rode the train.
N.B. John is serving as the President of NCRT effective 1/1/2009. New Hope Valley Railway's Web site is: www.hvry.org.
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